ForgetMeNot
by Inverse-chan
Summary: OneShot. When there is eternity, all pain fades away. Wounds are not healed, necessarily, but grown into. And nothing seems to matter as it once did.


**Series: **Hunter X Hunter  
**Title: **Forget-Me-Not  
**Rating: **PG  
**Pairing/ Characters: **If you squint hard enough at a single sentence, very slight Leorio/Kurapika.  
**Word Count: **946  
**Warning/s: **You should know who Kuroro is.  
**Disclaimer: **Still, the answer is no.

* * *

It was a city he had never been in before – a place far from the sea, far from the equator, far from everywhere he had ever once wished to be. So far from a place which could no longer be found on any maps. So far from home. 

He had never seen snow before, but here, now, it fell softly from the sky in silence, dusting his shoulders and hair until they shimmered as if covered by a translucent veil. He did not move inside, away from the numbing cold, only tilted his head back until he was looking at the sky. A single snowflake latched onto an eyelash, and as he blinked, landed in his eye.

Kurapika thought of dust, sunshine laughter, and jewel-red eyes. He breathed in ice. He thought of a thousand years, money, greed, despair, and his mother's voice, pleading. Snow caressed his face, ghosting over his eyelids, cheekbones, lips. He thought of death and hatred and the feel of blood. A chill wind ripped through him, numbing his soul.

It must have been then when he started to forget.

* * *

Small, valiant seedlings push their bowed heads through the cold, hard earth and the sludge that was once snow. Soon, they will be flowers, blooming in light and dark. 

He would have thought something as simple as this poetically beautiful once. A triumph of one aspect of nature against another! Something seemingly harmless and weak, winning against a whole world of frost.

Kurapika is the hero of this story, but the world is a large place to fight.

He does not see how the earth reawakens. He does not care about such things as the feel of a soft breeze against his face, although it is no longer bitterly cold. He does not smell the air, though now it is no knives, but the faint musk of bark and spring. He does not recall how he would have been fascinated by all of this, as a child.

In the end, it is only the snow that melts. Not his heart.

* * *

He thinks that, perhaps, there is something wrong with him when he stops returning their calls when once, he would have died for them. He thinks that, perhaps, there is something wrong with him when he sees a spider, and feels more fatigue than anger. He thinks that, perhaps, there is something wrong with him when his eyes turn the dark red of rust and drying blood, instead of the brightness of fire.

* * *

Kurapika sits on a throne of thorns which he himself has made. It is built from his anguish and despair, and it is the one thing above all else that makes him a tragic hero. Once upon a time, it dug into him painfully – a constant reminder of his duties (despair revenge mourning hate). It was a motivation to action: he could not sit still for the pain. 

But now, it is old and battered. Where there were once thorns are now spots worm smooth. He settles back into his throne at the end of a long day, and forgets why he built it.

When there is eternity, all pain fades away. Wounds are not healed, necessarily, but grown into. And nothing seems to matter as it once did.

* * *

Soon, he forgets the friends of his childhood (seemingly perfect children with golden hair and blue eyes, and laughter like sunlight). 

Soon, he forgets his mother's face (and her voice, her feather touch, her last words _the spiders are coming. hide, hurry, run, I love you __**love**_).

Soon, he forgets why he dresses as he does (time spent so meticulously hooking invisible fastenings and tying ridiculous bows, only to be stuffy and hot and irritated all of the time).

Soon, he forgets Gon and Killua and Leorio (that man who calls him still, and talks in a voice that knows his calls are not needed, no wanted, but who cannot bear to let him go).

Soon, he forgets why he had been in such a hurry to develop his nen-chain (he was strong, true, but he could have been so much stranger and what was the hurry, really?)

Soon, spring is upon him, and the seedlings bloom into beautiful flowers (morning glories, fragrant vine-like jasmine, and forget-me-nots, with their heads bowed low, hung sadly with the weight of dew and shame).

* * *

When Kurapika first realizes what is happening, he tries to stop it. He spends hours reading, researching (a head trauma without an accident? repression? it's his brain on revolt! his hippocampus no longer storing memories in long term, so that every day is a new slate! tabula rasa! but that affects new memories, not the old, and just like that it all falls apart) because he doesn't want to forget, not really, not everything. 

He sleeps more, in hopes that it will cure, but wakes as from one dream to another.

He loses all sense (sight of red, smell of blood, feel of steel). It is the sound of the screams that fades last – echoing languorously in the empty corridors of his mind.

* * *

Spring has long past, and still, he has not left the city. It does not seem as foreign as it once did – what had he been comparing it to? 

He walks the street of sunshine and smiles at strangers. He breezes past a tall man in a dark coat, mind on the book he hopes to finish later that afternoon. The man turns to Kurapika, perplexed at silence, but Kurapika is already past.

Kuroro pauses, but does not pursue him – Kurapika's eyes are the color of the sea, and that hue holds no interest for him.


End file.
